July Residential Sales Statistics

The Tucson Association of Realtors has released the Residential Sales Statistics for July.

Art Deco Gas Stations

Have you ever noticed how many art deco gas stations Tucson has? This seem peculiar to me for many reasons. There were about 30,000 people here during art deco's Depression Era heyday. How many people in this cow town could have had cars? Even more mysterious is how the gas stations survived Tucson's contempt for old buildings. If Barrio Historico was razed for our abominable Tucson Convention Center, how did the lowly gas stations survive the Urban Removal of the '60s? Compounding the mystery is the question of why these gas stations weren't destroyed a few years ago when it seemed the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality suddenly got tough about LUSTs (leaking underground storage tanks), and numerous gas stations were bulldozed so the soil could be cleaned up.

The beauty shown above is at 648 North Stone Avenue. I just love the cupola, which looks like a soft serve ice cream cone. This gas station has a new life as the offices of a bail bondsman and a seller of Mexican car insurance.



This station at the northeast corner of Grant and Stone is empty, despite having wonderful windows.

Jimmy's Broadway operated at the southwest corner of Tucson Boulevard and Broadway for years without bothering to hang a sign. Then suddenly they got a website and a paint job that accentuates the art deco lines.

I think the predecessor to Jimmy's Broadway used to serve its customers at the current location of Long Wong's at Tucson Boulevard and 6th Street, where buffalo wings and beer are now served. I liked the dancing bears they used to have painted on the side of the building better than the current pink flamingos, which are so '80s. Or '50s. Maybe Long Wong's is just 10 years ahead of its time.

At least one more art deco gas station can be found at the southwest corner of Main and Speedway. The windows have been covered and the streamlining on the canopy has been covered, and the canopy supports have been replaced by some thin ugly pipes. No respect.

Update: Mystery solved. None of these gas stations was built in the '30s. According to the tax records, 648 N Stone was built in 1960, Long Wong's was built in 1941, Jimmy's Broadway was built in 1986, 1 East Grant was built in 1959 and 1057 North Main was built in 1953. Oh well.

Building Permits by E-mail

I have previously posted here (October 9, 2007) about the importance of checking for building permits when you are buying or selling a house. Most agents don't bother with this, either because they don't know the consequences of buying or selling a home with an unpermitted addition (which is a huge proportion of the houses in Central Tucson), or they figure what their client doesn't know won't hinder the house sale.

Some agents are aware of the need to check permits to the extent that they go to the City of Tucson's Development Services web site and look there. If they don't find anything, they conclude no permits exist. The problem with this is the City has only put permits on their web site for the past few years. Most of the carport and porch enclosures occurred decades ago.

Friday I went to the Development Services office at 201 North Stone Avenue to look up the permits for a house I have in escrow. I was dismayed to find that I can no longer request the microfiche of the permits and have a paper copy made on the spot. Now I have to submit my request, and the staff will e-mail the permits to me in a day or so.

This had to happen eventually. I was always amazed that the City let people get their hands on these microfiche, the only records of the building permits. Because the City will only make 10 copies per customer per day, a lot of the microfiche were stolen. More were probably misfiled and lost forever. Until a few years ago, people could take the microfiche without even giving their name. Then a form with name, address and phone number was required, but no one verified the contact information, so I doubt this had much effect on the disappearance of microfiche.

Now that I know the drill, it will be a pleasure to request permits online at dsd_records@tucsonaz.gov. I will not miss the drive downtown, paying $2 to park in the garage, and impairing my vision and sanity while trying to use the ancient microfiche reader.

Farmer John Meats

On the north side of Grant Road, just east of the I-10 underpass, is a former meat packing plant, Farmer John Meats.

The exterior walls are covered with murals celebrating the cowboy myth of happy cattle and Marlboro Man ranchers.
As mesquite hugger and pesco-lacto-ovo-vegetarian (that's a joke, son), I am of course cynical about the whole How the West was Won legend, but I like these murals.

According the the New York Times, these murals were painted in the 1960s by Leslie Allen Grimes, a Hollywood set designer. He also painted murals for Farmer John Meats in Vernon and Fresno, California and Phoenix. Amusing comments about the murals at the Farmer John slaughter house in Vernon can be found here.
Mr. Grimes died in 1968 in a fall from a scaffolding while painting one of his murals. Arno Jordan restored and added to the murals from 1968 to 1998.

I'm not sure whether anyone is still maintaining the murals. I also wonder what is going to happen to Tucson's defunct Farmer John plant. I think I remember hearing years ago that it may become a nightclub or something.

June Residential Sales Statistics

The Tucson Association of Realtors just released the Residential Sales Statistics for June.

The market continues to slowly stabilize. Changes from May 2008 to June 2008 were as follows: Average sale price up 2.65%, median sale price down 0.5%. Housing units sold up 0.88% and active listings down 4.54%. With 8,140 properties on the market, and 1,034 sales in June, we have a 7.9 month supply of listings. A six month supply is considered a balanced market. We're heading in the right direction.

Bats

A couple of nights ago Steve and I decided to go see the bats emerge from under the Campbell Avenue bridge over the mighty Rillito River.

While we waited for them to wake up, we enjoyed the usual postcard pretty Tucson sunset.



We were surprised to see that a couple dozen other people had the same idea. Some were sitting down in the dry (for now!) river bed. Everyone seemed to know the bats would fly to the west.

We could hear the bats twittering to each other as they woke up. They had been sleeping in the one inch space between pairs of joists. I read somewhere that some buildings and bridges are now designed as bat houses. I don't know whether that happened here, or whether it was just a lucky accident.

After the sun went down, the bats started coming out a few at a time. Eventually we could see hundreds fly away for a night of insect consumption. Eat lots of mosquitoes, guys!

We stood under the bridge with bats flying within inches of us, but none ever hit us. It was really fun.




Although the air was filled with bats, I could only get a picture of one of them. You'll just have to go see the spectacle for yourself.

Update: The Arizona Daily Star just did an article today about the Campbell Avenue bats. It says the bats are Mexican free-tailed bats. They've also got a photo of a cloud of bats.

Solstice Celebration

Flam Chen burning the memorial urn at the All Soul's Procession last November.



Anytime you can see creatures on stilts playing with fire while listening to a kilt-clad bagpipe marching band, you know something fun has got to happen.

Saturday the Arizona State Museum on the U of A campus near Park and University will celebrate the Solstice in fine style. Starting at 2:30, you can cool off inside the Museum and learn about the astronomical achievements of the Anasazis at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Multicultural events will occur throughout the day, including Japanese and African drumming, henna tatoos, opportunities to grind corn, make a paper flower and play a Yaqui instrument. The Aztec sun blessing will be at 4:30. Molehill Orkestrah performs gypsy music at 7:30.

At 9:00 Tucson's own Flam Chen, a performance group famous for their costumes, stilts, percussion music and fun with fire and helium, join forces with the Seven Pipers Scottish Society for the Grand Finale. This is so perfectly Tucson, and not to be missed.